A packetized data transmitter notes packet transmission times and the times, if any, of retransmission requests from a receiver. Based on the period between original transmission and retransmission of a dropped packet, the transmitter establishes a packet discard period, essentially a transmitter packet buffer length.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A packetized data transmitter dynamically establishing, for each packetized data stream during transmission of the stream, a packet expiration period to be used for determining whether previously transmitted packets should be discarded from a retransmission queue at the transmitter by flushing the queue, wherein the transmitter determines whether it has received a request from a receiver to retransmit a packet and if so, retransmits the requested packet and revises the packet expiration period at least in part by determining a difference between a time the packet as identified by its packet ID was first transmitted to the receiver, and a time the packet of the same packet ID is retransmitted, and/or by determining a difference between a time the packet was first transmitted, and a time the request to retransmit is received by the transmitter.
2. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter is a user datagram protocol (UDP) transmitter.
3. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter executes the establishing act substantially only at the beginning of each new packetized data stream being transmitted.
4. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter executes the establishing act for all retransmitted packets in a packetized data stream.
5. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter executes the establishing act periodically for some but not all retransmitted packets in a packetized data stream.
6. The transmitter of claim 1 , comprising averaging the expiration period with previous expiration periods to render an averaged period that is used to determine when to flush the queue.
7. A packetized data transmitter, comprising: a processor executing logic including: receiving, from a receiver at a request time, a request for retransmission of a packet transmitted at an original transmission time; retransmitting the packet in response to the request; in response to the request, determining a packet expiration period at least in part by measuring a period from the original transmission time of the packet to at least one time in the group of times consisting of: the request time, and a time of retransmitting the packet; and using the packet expiration period to determine whether to discard packets from retransmission buffer in the transmitter by flushing the packets from the buffer.
8. The transmitter of claim 7 , comprising averaging the expiration period with previous expiration periods to render an averaged period that is used to determine when to flush the buffer.
9. The transmitter of claim 7 , wherein the transmitter is a user datagram protocol (UDP) transmitter.
10. The transmitter of claim 7 , wherein the logic executes the determining act substantially only at the beginning of each new packetized data stream being transmitted.
11. The transmitter of claim 7 , wherein the logic executes the determining act for all retransmitted packets in a packetized data stream.
12. The transmitter of claim 7 , wherein the logic executes the determining act periodically for some but not all retransmitted packets in a packetized data stream.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
March 14, 2005
November 23, 2010
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